Tranist Strikes, TWU and the French Protests - What are we talking about?

When the TWU voted to strike last December, crippling the city of New York and making Christmas miserable for thousands, the main sticking point was what Toussaint referred to as “our unborn”. Had he been more sophisticated and a true strategist, he would have better phrased this idea, which is in essence that what the MTA was proposing is a two-tiered system whereby benefits and protections are different based on date of hire. Toussaint blew an opportunity to address what millions of Americans already face, and what the new French labor law will impose upon hundreds of thousand of French people.

Two-tiered systems are not new. When a system, such as Medicare and Social Security, becomes unworkable or, in the American case, unaffordable for those conservatives who wish to obliterate FDR from the collective memory, a two-tiered is what arises.

Somewhere, a decision is made that the system has to change, and a cut-off point is imposed. The MTA wanted to create such a system, a change that many unions across the globe have faced or are facing now.

The news from France has been pushed off to the side largely because Naomi Campbell’s temper tantrums and Jessica Simpson’s bleached blonde hair make better news. But the news from France is big news, and if the protests take hold and last beyond June (the French vacationing season), these protests could rock the rest of Europe.

While the French youth movement of the 1960’s made splashy news in 1968, it didn’t last long – the French vacationing season overshadowed it. But this is not just a youth movement angered at laws that would allow workers to be terminated within the first two of employment for now reason. It is a reaction against what many see as an Americanization of labor laws. In most of the US, workers are employed “at will”, which simply means that the company who hired them is not obligated to keep them on board. They can be terminated ‘at will”, for almost any reason. In Europe, labor laws have been more favorable towards employees, and firing an employee is not easy.

The French law, which would apply mostly to young people seeking first jobs, would also apply to those who change jobs. The French are up in arms. And it is not a joke.

When the TWU decided to strike, the majority of transit employees interviewed by television reporters decried minutia such as benefit contributions or disciplinary action. The idea of a two-tiered system was swallowed up by the flashier topics of average pay. It was the wrong direction for Toussaint to take his sheep. He led them to a wall of apathy on the part of non-Union workers, which make up the vast majority of the American workforce, who get fired with alarming regularity. Turnover in the workplace is at least 40%, which means getting fired or laid-off is a reality for millions. It is hard to be sympathetic when the sting of a firing remains fresh.

But the French protests, largely peaceful thus far, mark a change in very identity of what it means to be French, and certainly do not bode well for the TWU or other such unions.

Tags:   french student protests, labor laws, mta, strike, twu, unions

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Posted on 4/1/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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